The Diaries of Kenneth Tynan - Rilegato

Kenneth Tynan

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0747554188 ISBN 13: 9780747554189

Casa editrice: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 2001

Riassunto

Critic Kenneth Tynan, the impresario who created "Oh Calcutta", was also an eccentric and connoisseur of cuisine, wine, literature and women. His diaries record a judicious blend of aesthetics, theatre lore, love, marriage, sex and politics.

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Recensione

Perhaps the most brilliant and feared theatre critic of his generation, Kenneth Tynan was responsible for 'Oh! Calcutta!', and was also a notorious eccentric, who enjoyed wine, literature and women and the first person to say the 'f' word on television. A larger-than-life character, he "combined the soul of a artist with the descriptive skill of a journalist". His diaries, as edited by John Lahr (senior drama critic of the New Yorker and writer of a definitive study of Joe Orton), have been eagerly awaited and, sure enough, they prove as colourful and controversial as the legendary figure who originated them. He knew everybody, and everyone wanted to know him, on both sides of the Atlantic. He was at the centre of the theatre and film worlds. Such was - and is - Tynan's stature and influence that the publication of this collection must rank as something of an event. Whether talking about the National Theatre, psychoanalysis, his much-talked-about sado-masochistic relationships, or just watching Muhammad Ali fight on TV, he is never less than riveting. For many this will be an essential purchase - Tynan still wears well.

The yards of column space that have already been expended on these diaries tend to dwell (rather disapprovingly) on Kenneth Tynan's sado-masochism. The Oxford-educated boy genius turned theatre critic, hitherto best known for daring to use the F-word on television, will now go down in history as a compulsive disciplinarian and pervert. It's true that sex suffuses these diaries, whether it be the famous spanking sessions with mistress Nicole (and sundry other pick-ups) the live sex shows in Hamburg or the porn movies, watched, with deliciously guilty pleasure, in the unlikely company of Princess Margaret. But there is much more besides, for these diaries are packed to the hilt with colourful anecdotes (smoking pot with Peter Sellers, hanging out on the set of Roman Polanski's Macbeth), wry observations, bon mots, quotes from friends and from whatever Ken happens to be reading. A veritable treasure trove of titbits, funny and frank by turns, they also provide a vivid record of the time (the early 1970s) when they were written the films, the plays, the politics, the big sports events (of Muhammed Ali's defeat by Joe Frazier in 1971, Tynan writes: 'there is breathtaking hubris he reminds one of a beautiful butch queer savouring the ecstasy of being beaten up and rolled by a bit of rough trade'). Alas, by the end, a rather depressing picture emerges, of a gifted but hopelessly narcissistic aesthete, cigarette permanently dangling from effete fingertips, who never achieved his full potential, worn down and eventually disillusioned by the soul-destroying struggle to raise finance for his (largely unrealized) film and theatre projects. In the end he was 'just a critic', but a truly great one, with a rare gift for wordplay. John Lahr's pedantic (and sometimes inaccurate) annotations grate somewhat, but otherwise, this is a journal to rank alongside the Alan Clark Diaries and the Letters of William Burroughs in its brazen shamelessness, its love of language and razor-sharp wit. (Kirkus UK) --various

L'autore

John Lahr has been writing about theatre and popular culture for The New Yorker since 1992. He is the author of sixteen books, among them Notes on a Cowardly Lion: The Biography of Bert Lahr and Prick up Your Ears: The Biography of Joe Orton and Dame Edna Everage and The Rise of Western Civilization.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
• Data di pubblicazione: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0747554188
• ISBN 13: 9780747554189
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero edizione: 1
• Numero di pagine: 352
• Redattore: John Lahr